01/05/17: Hulu’s TV service will cost under $40

Good morning. It’s Thursday January 5, 2017 and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

TODAY’S CODEBREAKER

Pinned Tweet: When Twitter users select a certain tweet as their pinned tweet, that tweet remains in place at the top of their feed, as if it were their most recent tweet, until it is unpinned.

TOP NEWS

Hulu’s much-awaited internet-based live TV service now has a rough price point – and it’s pretty low. According to CEO Mike Hopkins, the service will come in at under $40 per month. AT&T’s competing service DirecTV Now, which debuted late last year, was initially said to have a $35-per-month price tag, but that turned out to be a temporary promotional offer. Not so with Hulu, Hopkins said; under $40 means under $40. Hopkins also said that the service will include Hulu’s $8 per month VOD offering, as well as a cloud-based DVR. It’s expected to launch in Q1.

ADVERTISING

After six months of beta testing, digital music service Pandora is set to widely roll out its newest ad format. The format enables marketers to replace album art with muted video and expandable display. Brands including Google, Lexus, and Express were on board for the initial test. The new ads emerge from beta on January 19.

View the complete agenda online and sign up before January 6 to save $100 off the regular rate.

PLATFORMS, APPS + DEVICES

Over-the-air broadcast TV integration seems to be all the rage at CES. Mohu, a company best known for making its own antennas for free over-the-air TV, is announcing a new product that combines its core product with new streaming capabilities, allowing viewers to stream free TV broadcasts to mobile and connected-TV devices. The product, called Airwave, is slated to ship in May for a price of $150. It’ll first be available at Best Buy and via Mohu’s website. Around the time of the device’s launch, Mohu also plans to roll out apps for mobile devices, as well as for devices like Roku and Apple TV. This isn’t Mohu’s first time trying to market a smart TV tuner. The company tried to roll out a similar device, called Channels, in 2015, without finding much success. It seems the company is betting that cord-cutters will be more of a market force in 2017.

Nuvyyo, maker of the Tablo DVR for cord-cutters, is getting on the bandwagon as well. At CES, the company is unveiling the Tablo Live stick, a device that lets users wirelessly stream over-the-air live TV to devices that have Tablo’s apps installed. It’s slated to go on sale in Q2 of this year, selling for $99. Tablo’s software is already available for a number of devices, including iOS and Android phones, and connected-TV platforms like Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. At launch, the device won’t be able to record broadcasts. But Nuvyyo is also previewing a new cloud DVR at CES, designed to let users store recordings from Tablo Live. No word yet on when it will debut or what it will cost.

VIRTUAL + AUGMENTED REALITY

IMAX announced that it’s getting ready to open a virtual reality center at the Grove, a well-known shopping center/farmer’s market in Los Angeles. Owned and operated by IMAX, the center will showcase games and other VR experiences on StarVR and HTC Vive headsets. The goal, said IMAX exec Rob Lister, is to test out different types of VR experiences, gauging which types of experiences users enjoy and how much they might be willing to pay for them. The company plans to open a second VR facility in London within a month or two, and to open up a total of six VR centers within the first two quarters of 2017, including one in Japan and one in China.

CYNOPSIS SALARY SURVEY

From geography to gender, all is not equal in the media world, according to the new Cynopsis Salary Survey. The Northeast offers top pay for Buyers/Planners ($94,800), Sales/Distribution ($138,700) and Research ($113,000), but the West is where it’s at to make top dollar in Programming ($126,900), Marketing/PR ($113,500) and Production ($126,200). And overall, there’s a $31,700 gap in annual salary between men and women – in some groups like Finance/Legal, the yearly difference can be as much as $50,000. Download the survey here for details on dollars, benefits, job satisfaction and more.

POLICY

The FCC’s 2016 privacy rules for Broadband providers, which prohibit Internet service providers from drawing on their subscribers’ prior behavior in ad targeting, were never popular with advertising trade groups. Now several of them have formally asked the FCC to reverse course. (The orgs in question: The Association of National Advertisers, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Data & Marketing Association, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Network Advertising Initiative, and the American Advertising Federation.) In a new petition, the groups argue that the FCC ruling “violates First Amendment protections of commercial speech.” The trade orgs needn’t worry: It’s a near certainty that the Commission’s soon-to-be Republican majority will overturn the ruling, which passed on a party line vote in October.

Apple has removed all New York Times news apps from its app store in Mainland China. The tech giant says the move came at the request of the Chinese government. China started blocking the Times’ websites as far back as 2012, but had faced more difficulty when it came blocking the publication’s Chinese-language app. The Chinese government initially took issue with the Times after a series of 2012 articles examining the wealth of then-Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. News apps from the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and other publications remain available. As for the Times, not quite everything has been blocked: The publication’s virtual reality and crossword puzzle apps are still available throughout China.

RESEARCH

The ListenFirst Television Interest (TVI) Rating (TM) is a standardized measurement of the most buzzed-about TV programs on linear TV and streaming services. A complement to ListenFirst’s other syndicated data products (such as the ListenFirst Digital Audience Rating – TV), the metrics included in the rating capture organic actions that are largely unaffected by paid media. Programs that surface on the TVI leaderboards are the most hashtagged on Facebook, Twitter,Google+, and Tumblr, as well as most searched for on Wikipedia (used as a proxy for organic search volume).

Streaming Series (12/26/16 – 1/1/16)

Source: ListenFirst. The TVI Rating aggregates metrics that measure organically generated activity by fans of the TV show. The metric includes total volume of official hashtag mentions on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, along with Wikipedia page views (as a proxy for organic search volume) for a show as a percentage of the total volume of the same activities for all shows.

@__IssaJoseph: Oh my gawwwwwwdd, this #RoseBowl game is insaneCanvs, the language analytics company that measures emotions around content, analyzed tweets about TV and streaming programming from Dec. 28-Jan. 3 using Twitter data from Nielsen. Insights from the 3,269,183 tweets expressing a specific Emotional Reaction (ER) include:
– 66.9% of people who said something on TV was awkward were watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on ABC, with many commenting on Mariah Carey’s performance snafu.
– 6.7% of viewers who talked about the craziness of something on TV were checking out the Rose Bowl on ESPN, where USC made a comeback over Penn State to take the win.
– Excluding sports and specials, 8.7% of people who said they were thrilled by a TV show were watching Freeform’s new series Beyond.
– 19.8% of viewers who said they had their mind blown by something on TV were tuned into UFC 207: Nunes vs. Rousey on pay-per-view, where Ronda Rousey was quickly knocked out.

TRIVIA

Who was the first comedian to be featured in a Netflix-exclusive stand-up special?
(Email trivia@cynopsis.com with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)

Our Last Trivia Question The timeframe of Arrested Development‘s4th season was structured differently than that of the first 3. How so? Answer: Each episode focuses on an individual character, with each episode unfolding at roughly same time within the show’s universe. Kudos to David Westberg-Sag-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/CA and Adam S. Hacker-Tashmoo Productions/GA.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

HOW TO MONETIZE AROUND LIVE VIDEOLive video has taken a quantum leap forward in the past year, with a foothold in gaming, sports and awards events, events delivered via live-streaming are attracting increasing ad dollars. If you’re a marketer or content producer planning for 2017 and beyond, you won’t want to miss our 1/31 webinar. Our speakers will share intel about which activations work best and how advertising can augment the business model.

No matter what stage of implementation you’re in, you won’t want to miss the webinar. Register today.

DIGITAL SPOTLIGHT

To navigate a VR world, users often have to rely on clunky, difficult to manipulate controllers. AT CES, California startup uSens introduced its solution: Fingo, a $100 tracking module that creates a virtual version of a user’s hand within VR and AR experiences. The virtual hand reflects the precise movements of users’ real hand motions, enabling them to more easily manipulate virtual objects. Fingo, uSens announced, is already compatible with Epson’s new developer-oriented AR glasses. For now the company’s goal is to add to the list, encouraging more headset-makers to integrate Fingo into their devices. The company raised $20 million in a series A funding round last summer. You can check out a very cool video of their new technology here.

JOB OPENING:FREELANCE NEWS PROMO PRODUCER/WRITER/EDITOR/NYC: Must have strong writing abilities & a solid understanding of video prod. Must be able to think conceptually & execute creative in detail. Exp editing video on Adobe Premiere is a must. Work flex hrs a must and under strict deadlines. Res/cvr HERE(1/10)

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